10 months and not imitating?

Some of you will read this and roll their eyes. For those of you who do, please understand: I HAVE AN ANXIETY DISORDER. I worry unnecessarily about things. I’m working on it, really, I am.

Babby is ten and a half months old now.

I haven’t done a full update, because besides the biting, nothing really amazing has happened since the nine month mark. He was still pointing at everything, pulling himself up, signing for milk constantly, handing me objects, making me bleed and so on.

Yo. Boob lady. Book me.

He is pointing at pictures in books now, and if possible is even more obsessed with them. As soon as I put the book down he is practically throwing it at me with impatient “Ah! Buh!” noises.

So really, I shouldn’t be at all concerned about anything.

But I’m me, so I am.

Here’s the thing: Babby has learned how to wave, which is fun.

But the sign for milk disappeared.

This baby was signing for milk CONSTANTLY. It wasn’t always to get milk. I think he knew it would get my attention.

"MILK NAOW PLZ?"

While we think that to him “milk” and “mommy” were the same thing (since I am just a big booba to him, clearly), he did know what it meant because if I said “milk?” he’d start signing away, and if I signed it back he’d get all excited and start pulling at my shirt.

He doesn’t react if I say the word, he doesn’t react if I sign it at him. If I try to withhold the breast until he signs it (which he was doing with alacrity a week ago) he just stares at me. He is getting very frustrated and starting to scream a lot, because I no longer know what he wants when he gets thirsty.

PH says that regressions happen and the sign will come back. But of course I’m catastrophizing all over the place.

Especially since both signs, the milk and the waving, were captured behaviours. I mean that he happened to make them on his own, and we made a big fuss over it, so he did it again.

They weren’t imitated behaviours.

He doesn’t imitate us if we wave at him, or do other hand motions. He likes the waving thing, but it’s hard to get him to initiate it, because he does it randomly, not when we demonstrate waving or tell him to “say hi!” or “say bye!”

Should he be imitating us by now? He doesn’t imitate facial expressions, or try to mimic the words that we say, either. Meanwhile, an acquaintance on facebook has posted an adorable video of her three month old girl imitating sounds.

He enjoys watching itsy bitsy spider, but he doesn’t try make the motions himself.

He does SOME imitations. Sometimes, if I clap, he’ll clap too. He also watches how we interact with objects and then tries to do it himself.

We just had a fun little session today where I was showing him how to put his block IN a cup, and he was trying to do it too.

He also enjoys the “it’s on Babby’s head!” game, invented by PH which involves (cleverly enough) putting stuff on Babby’s head. When it falls off, he’ll try to put it back on.

I don’t think you’re crazy – I just think you’re a normal, concerned mommy who also happens to have anxiety issues that *may* make the kinds of things we all worry about (yes, we do!) a little more overwhelming for you.

Regressions do happen. Sleep regressions, feeding regressions, behaviour regressions. Raising kids is very much a one step forward, two steps back kind of process.

My guess is he’s not signing for milk anymore because hey! he learned this cool new thing! check it out!! I know when my kids (and the dayhome kids, too) learn a new thing it becomes their signature move or behaviour until they learn something else.

But like Jessica said, keep watch (which you’ll do anyway) and take note of anything that really bothers you. Try not to worry too much if you can help it.

I do have to stick my big ol’ nose in though… I don’t think I would withhold milk until he signs. He’s not even a year old yet. The youngest kid I care for is 14 months… I don’t withhold food or water if he doesn’t “ask” politely, I just reinforce by saying “please!” and then “thank you!” with exaggerated gestures. Being any more rigorous at this age would just frustrate him AND me… I humbly suggest that you might want to back off on requiring the sign, at least for a little while. Take the pressure off him and you.

I get what you mean. Don’t worry, I’m not SERIOUSLY with holding milk. But up until about a week ago, if he was doing his ear-piercing tea kettle scream, rather than shoving a boob in his open mouth to shut him up, I’d say “what do you want, do you want milk?” and when he settled and signed it, I’d say “Oh! OKAY!” and give him the boob.

Because the ear piercing screams are very uncool.

It doesn’t work now, though, so he gets it anyway.

Although, for a while he was biting my boob every time I gave it to him, and then I would withhold it for a while, because DAMN.

Anxiety or no anxiety, I think a bit of watchfulness is normal. Pointing is a very good sign, I think – Bub never pointed – it was like that pointer finger just didn’t know how. Eventually (at around age two) we laboriously taught him how to point by extending the pointer finger and folding down the other ones, and then following the line of the finger all the way up to the object himself (at which point Bub suddenly clued in to what the fuss was all about). Even then he couldn’t follow a pointing gesture – he’d just look AT the finger and never follow it to the object (this is something he still struggles with, actually).

That is reassuring to hear. I’ve always said that autism isn’t the end of the world – my cousin with Asperger’s is smart as a whip, and I value intelligence over social skills (cough*ravenclaw*cough), but obviously I would still very much like to NOT have him autistic, if given the choice.

Babby was following my pointing finger from 5 months or so onwards, but I was delighted when he started pointing himself. At least he still does that!

Well, obviously I have no practical advice. But I wouldn’t dream of laughing in your face over it. Really, though, I just wanted to mention that Babby is freaking adorable. And I’m glad I’ll have your writing as a resource in a year or so.

Thank you! And I hope you do – I’d like to think my sufferings may amuse and instruct in the future. Hopefully you’ll be able to read through it all and gloat. Have you gone back to read my pregnancy stuff, so you can be proud that YOU haven’t microwaved your yogurt like I did?

The ‘milk’ will come back… right about the time waving disappears because he’s discovered, oh, pointing, or playing peekaboo, or picking his nose, or some other AMAZING NEW SKILL! Hodgepodge is right, of course: regressions happen. (And you know, I really don’t like that word. It sounds so clinical and doomsday. And permanent, which they almost never are.) Let’s just say that interests ebb and flow, in babies and adults!

He’ll likely do this with spoken words, too: he’ll have a word in his vocabulary, and then it will vanish for days to weeks before emerging again.

That watching what you do with stuff and imitating the actions, should be reassuring. It’s exactly what he should be doing!

Dogs TOTALLY do this. I can’t tell you how many times I would be working a skill with a dog only to have the dig totally forget it the next day. I can also remember several PRs frustrated over the same thing. All I can tell you is what I told them: They are dogs (or in your case, babies). As much as you would like to shake them and tell them they already know this, they don’t understand what you’re saying. Your admonishments and frustration will only serve to frighten and confuse. Take a deep breath…and retrain.

If it happens a lot or doesn’t come back, then maybe you should be worried.

RuRu has little regressions – like after he got his shots he stopped reaching for things for a bit. I think he felt icky. He was working on feeling better and forgot about reaching for toys. It’s part of growing up.

This reminds me of my son when he was a bub. We would get so excited when he would learn a new word, and I would dutifully add it to the list and then poof, he’d stop saying that word after a couple of weeks of saying it over and over. It was like he had a list too, and he’d say to himself “What’s this? Ah, red. Okay, yep, I can say red. I can check that one. Now on to blue.” By 21 months he had about 20 words he would say frequently, and those few that he used to say. I brought it up with the pediatrician who was smart enough to say “Let’s see how he does at 24 months.” And I swear, we got back in our car to go home and he pointed at his stuffed cat and said “Meow”, and when we got home, he pointed at a digger in his favorite book and said “Dig” and he hasn’t stopped talking since.

As for my 10 month old, she clapped obsessively for weeks, and now does it a lot less. I’m just worried about her inability to get into a sitting position from crawling (which she only does commando style) and lack of desire to pull up. Maybe she and Babby could combine their skills and then we’d have a “typical” 10 month old between the two of us.

A) OMG! Cutest Babby pics ever! I love the masthead, too!
B) I’m not a mom…
C) But I did practically raise my baby nephew (lived with my sis when he was small) and I also have an anxiety disorder. So those are my credentials, slim as they may be. And because I have an anxiety disorder, I realize that illogical worrying is just the territory. So my two small and humble bits of advice are:
– just be. My therapist has been trying to get me to increase my mindfulness, to say: “this is my life, right now; it’s the only one I have, so I’m just going to be totally in it.” These are the only moments Babby will be 10 1/2 months, so it’s OK to just be in it and not think about what’s next…
– which is super-hard for those of us with anxiety. But it sounds like Babby is just right. You love and nurture him so. You are so intentional in your parenting. Boys, especially, often have a non-traditional path when it comes to communication skills. Sounds like he’s doing lots of communicating, but he’s going to do it on his own terms. There are 9 kajillion (scientific term!) types of kids and 9 kajillion paths to mastering communication (and everything else). Everyone worries about their kiddos but most kiddos are just fine.

Greyson was talking, and i mean talking at 10 months (saying words at 8)… walked before his first birthday, blew kisses, went potty, waved, and stacked blocks all as well before he was 1… Violette is 15 and a half months now, and she only started walking a couple weeks ago, she only says daddy, kitty (for anything furry), and mumumumum… she doesn’t do very well with a fork, and is showing little care towards much other than giggling and screaming.

in other words, every child is very different… and every book is written from another point of view. i guess all i can say is trust your gut, and if you think he’s regressing, or not PROgressing the way he “should”, take him to the dr. or public health… they’ll be able to watch him interact and let you know if there is anything that you could work on with him. but don’t worry so much, just love him and squeeze him everyday:)

Just to add my voice to those saying that kids do sometimes seem to forget things they knew, and then those things normally pop back up again a while later. My impression of your baby is that he is amazingly advanced, capable and alert for his age. My older son didn’t even wave until he was almost 14 months old – I remember worrying about it (he’s behind me building a cave out of sofa cushions and chattering away in some imaginary world as I write i.e. he is absolutely fine…)

I have nothing new, just another affirmation for you. Pointing is a very good sign. Pointing was a laboriously learned behavior for nearly every kid I know on the Autism Spectrum. I’ll also reiterate that Babby wil continue to drop one mastered skill to work on another for years. We lost most language when the munchkin was mastering climbing everything in sight, but it came back and then some. Way to go you for being watchful as a parent and watchful of your own anxiety!

Hey, it’s been a while since you posted this so hopefully your anxiety have subsided somewhat. You sound very scared and you describe your fears very eloquently, so I have no reason to believe that they are crazy, however; you also seem to recognize an underlying irrationality. The way you describe your son seems to imply it too; on the one hand there are those worrying absences of behavior, but on the other he seems incredibly curious, clever, interactive and energetic.

Perhaps it is easier if you approach it as a worry not to dismiss or talk yourself out of, but as a valid concern, something you need to wait and watch and evaluate further? I say this because, personally, I have found that “Of course, I am not going to die of cancer!” is completely useless against the 4 am panic. It seems unreasonable to reason yourself out of an irrational fear, so the way I handle it is by trying to accept the way I feel. Even at 4 am, I find it oddly comforting to know that should the lump in my throat turn out to be cancerous I will definitely have to deal with it at some point. If my worst fears come to pass there will be no ambiguity, no suspicions. It will be clear-cut, definitive badness.

I am sure you have already thought of these things, but I had a conversation with a friend this morning where she talked at length about “accepting the way she feels right now,” and it seems to me a potent and important notion. I experience a wide gap between what I think and what I feel. In fact, they are often at odds (war) with each other. I believe, if I can accept they way I feel without derision (self loathing, dismissal, trying to explain it) I’ll be so much closer to controlling my behavior through my thoughts rather than being overwhelmed by suppressed feelings that suddenly break through, if only because there will no longer be any suppressed fear to overwhelm me.

Ugh, sorry, if I sound pretentious (and if I got it all wrong, still working on my listening skills). It was like an epiphany – oh my god, we’re all broken in the same way!

Hi! I stumbled upon this post and have found myself deep in your blog, it’s so honest – exactly what us mums need to read. I have terrible anxiety and can really relate to this post, in fact I could have written it about my 10 month old daughter. I have worked myself into a complete state, panic attacks and can not leave the house. I feel so guilty and like she deserves so much better. Did your son start imitating? I’m literally sick with worry. Thank you